Chrissy

“He once told me that, just as wild animals play when they are young in preparation for lethal circumstances arising later in their lives, mathematics may be, to a large extent, nothing but a strange and wonderful collection of games, an enterprise whose real purpose, beyond any one stated outright, is to slowly work changes in the individual and collective human psyche, as a way to prepare us for a future that nobody can imagine.”
― Benjamín Labatut, The MANIAC

“The rich “learn lessons.” The poor commit crimes. “Mistakes” are generally considered a mark of the middle class.”
― Josiah Bancroft, The Hod King

“I find these connections profound, in a way that makes me think differently about the act of sensing itself. Sensing can feel passive, as if eyes and other sense organs were intake valves through which animals absorb and receive the stimuli around them. But over time, the simple act of seeing recolors the world. Guided by evolution, eyes are living paintbrushes. Flowers, frogs, fish, feathers, and fruit all show that sight affects what is seen, and that much of what we find beautiful in nature has been shaped by the vision of our fellow animals. Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder. It arises because of that eye.”
― Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

“Despite their nearness, fungi are so mystifying, their possibilities so other. Should this scare us off? Is it possible for humans, with our animal brains and bodies and language, to learn to understand such different organisms? How might we find ourselves changed in the process?”
― Merlin Sheldrake